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According to one empirical study, the answer is yes. In the September 2011 issue of the Michigan Bar Journal, attorney Sean Flamer summarizes the results of his study Persuading Judges: An Empirical Analysis of Writing Style, Persuasion, and the Use of Plain English,16 Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute 183 (2010).

Flamer mailed a variety of judges three versions of a response pleading: all judges received one in the conventional style, half received one in plain English, and half received one in informal plain English. The results:

A total of 292 judges returned the surveys—a response rate of 37%. Overall, the judges preferred the plain-English version to the original by 66% to 34%. More specifically,the rates for federal trial, federal appellate, state trial, and state appellate judges were 52%, 73%, 72%, and 65%. The judges’ location (rural versus urban area), age, gender,and years of experience did not correlate with which version they preferred.

Finally, the informal plain-English version did not fare quite as well, but 58% still preferred it. I believe, based on several judges’ comments, that the liberal use of contractions (most of them in the Introduction) may have been the reason for the 8% fall off.